From Ghosted to Getting Coverage: My Internship at 10to1PR

---

Written by Ella Johnson, PR Intern at 10to1PR

My first pitch went nowhere. No response. No acknowledgment. Nothing. I sent it out, checked my inbox, and waited. Still nothing. By the time my internship at 10to1PR came to a close, my last pitch landed multiple opportunities for the client. 

That gap between those two moments is the story of my internship and it was never about perfection. It was about growth.

From learning the craft of pitching to stepping into a client lead role, my time at 10to1PR gave me two things that matter most at the start of a PR career: real skills and real opportunity. Together, they built a foundation I never expected to find in an internship.

The Craft of Pitching: Learning It the Hard Way

When I started, I thought a good pitch was a well-written one. I quickly learned it is much more than that.

10to1PR introduced me to Smart Brevity, a framework that teaches you to lead with what matters most in the fewest words possible. The goal is to create a pitch filled with newsworthiness, emphasizing the relevance and uniqueness of the story. Every pitch I wrote became sharper because of it. More importantly, I learned to tailor every pitch to the individual reporter — their beat, their recent stories, and the specific audience they serve. A pitch that works for a local Arizona outlet will not work for a national business publication, and I learned to tell the difference.

One of the most valuable lessons came from the “hit singles, not home runs” mindset. It sounds simple, but it completely changed how I approached my work. Instead of chasing one big feature, I focused on building consistent, meaningful coverage across the right outlets. That steady approach is what eventually led to wins for the clients. 

Tracking newsletters was another tool I leaned on throughout the internship. By monitoring what journalists and editors were covering, I could position clients ahead of the news cycle rather than behind it.

Real Clients, Real Growth

Nothing prepares you for PR work quite like diving headfirst into unfamiliar industries. At 10to1PR, I worked across a range of clients that pushed me to learn quickly and think strategically.

AVANA Companies was my first real lesson in patience and adaptability. Private credit is not a world most college students walk into prepared for, and I had to put in the work to understand the industry before I could find the right story angles. It made me a better researcher and a more careful writer.

With the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity, a workforce development organization and the first state agency I’ve worked with, I developed an appreciation for mission-driven storytelling and local Arizona media. The work felt meaningful, and it sharpened my ability to write for community-focused audiences. We provided OEO’s monthly job reports to Arizona media outlets, showing how this is a reliable source for employment projections and workforce development.  

Kolbe Corp became my confidence-builder. This organization focused on workplace productivity and natural strengths through their Kolbe Index. I wrote the majority of my pitches for Kolbe Corp, tapping into trends around artificial intelligence and workplace behavior to find story angles that connected the brand to what journalists were already covering. I shared ideas during meetings and, for the first time, felt like a real contributor to the team.

360 Adventures, a tour guide based company in Arizona, gave me my first experience as a client lead, where I was responsible for managing client communications and pitching the brand at the Publicity Summit. During this event, we had the opportunity to pitch 360 Adventures to reporters face-to-face. I learned to think on my feet and be prepared for follow up questions without skipping a beat. 

Yom HaShoah was the first time I served as the sole client lead, and it gave me a new level of ownership over my work and my professional identity.

Opportunities That Changed the Trajectory

The skills I learned in the office mattered, but the opportunities 10to1PR provided outside of it changed the direction of my career.

Attending the Valley Publicity Summit was a turning point. For the first time, I was learning media relations face-to-face — talking to journalists, understanding what they look for in a pitch, and seeing the relationship between a PR professional and a reporter in real time. The ABC15 media panel gave PR professionals the chance to ask reporters questions directly, and I left with a perspective that no classroom had ever given me.

The Copper Anvil Awards put me in a room full of PR professionals who had built careers I admired. The DSV Groundbreaking ceremony taught me what it means to be a PR professional on event day — the preparation, the presence, and the pivots that happen when the cameras are rolling. That experience directly informed how I approached my first client-lead media campaign.

Professional development was built into every layer of the internship. I was introduced to PRSA, which led me to join their mentorship program. I earned four certifications through Muck Rack and attended multiple webinars to sharpen my understanding of the platform. The team also coached me on strengthening my LinkedIn presence, which opened new professional doors along the way.

Monthly Lunch and Learns, team workshops, and collaborative brainstorm sessions made the culture at 10to1PR one where learning never stopped. A 10to1PR team member taught the team about the importance of Research, Planning, Implementation, Evaluation (RPIE) in media campaigns. Utilizing her presentation from the Lunch & Learn, I applied RPIE to my first media campaign. There was also a healthy dose of friendly competition — every time a teammate shouted out a win, it pushed me to work harder for my own clients. The escape room reminded me that the best teams win together.

A Foundation Worth Building On

My biggest takeaways from this internship are patience, adaptability, and the kind of confidence that only comes from actually doing the work.

I came in not knowing how to pitch. I left having secured real media coverage for real clients across industries I had to study to understand. Every pitch I wrote, every client meeting I sat in on, and every opportunity 10to1PR extended to me contributed to what came next.

That foundation led directly to landing a full-time position at another PR firm.

I am grateful for every person on the 10to1PR team who invested in my growth. You gave me more than an internship. You gave me a career.